


Birds in Flight

by firefright



Series: Talon and the Hood [8]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Blow Jobs in a Car, Car Sex, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Identity Issues, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, muffled highway to the danger zone playing in the distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:11:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5018779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talon and Jason leave Gotham behind them, looking for a place to call their own. It's not as easy as it first seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds in Flight

They leave the city quietly.

The car's he's driving is a clunker, according to Jason. He'd used the term almost affectionately, addressing a vehicle good enough to get them where they were going, but rundown to a point that no one would look twice when it was abandoned and torched somewhere later on. Talon might have called that paranoia on Jason's part, but considering who was on their tail it was actually just good sense.

They haven't talked much since they left; since Talon brought the newest Robin home and then sent him back out into the night. It might have been a mistake, but in his gut Talon was certain he had done the right thing. _No more dead Robins._ Words to live by.

He runs his fingers over the stained glass of the window, watches the lights and dark shadows of the highway blur past. Jason's already speeding, has been ever since they passed the last of the suburbs, and he keeps accelerating the closer they get to the official Gotham border. Talon can't help but wonder if his partner's heart is beating as fast as his own.

The city lights fade slowly in the rearview mirror, but still faster than he's prepared for as they draw closer and closer to that invisible line between Gotham and not-Gotham, and he -

\- he's not afraid. Talon wets his lips and tears his eyes away from the darkness outside. Instead he looks to Jason, who's gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter until his knuckles turn white with the strain.

"Jason." he wants him to look at him, talk to him. Say _anything_ instead of this heated silence.

Jason ignores him, pushing the car harder, faster, until the whole vehicle is shuddering with effort and Talon wonders if the engine's about to give out, if they're about to crash and burn on the roadside. That would be an anticlimactic end to their story for sure.

It doesn't of course, but the thought is still there for a quick minute as a road sign flashes into view of the headlights. 

_Now Leaving Gotham City Limits._

He doesn't think either of them breathe again until they're past it. Then Jason suddenly slams on the brakes in a way that catapults Talon forwards against his seatbelt, and can't be good for Jason's cracked ribs either. He clenches his teeth and rests a hand bracingly on the dash until they've finished screeching to a halt on the hard shoulder.

There's precious little law enforcement this far out on the roads at this hour, lucky for them.

Talon turns his head back to look at Jason, watches him breathing hard, hands shaking as he lets go of the steering wheel. "Jason, what's wrong?" And the words die in his throat at the look in his partners eyes.

Dark, intense, and greener than he likes. Jason's fingers snap open the fastening on his seatbelt, before one hand drops on Talon's thigh and the other goes to the button of his borrowed jeans. He doesn't have even a moment to question his intent before they're pulled open and Jason's leaning down over the gear stick, fingers pulling him out and mouth sinking, hot and wet around his cock.

It's quick, dirty, and has Talon writhing in his seat. His fingers fall to Jason's hair, tugging helplessly as his head pushes backwards against the headrest, teeth clenched and eyes closed. He shakes, sighs, then falls apart in quick succession. Jason swallows around him, fingers clutching Talon's thigh with bruising force until he's wrung every last drop of come out of his cock, before pulling back and wiping across his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes a little less wild than they were when this started.

Talon pulls him in for a kiss before Jason can retreat back entirely to the other side of the car, tightening his grip in his hair. Jason returns it, but stops him before he can put his other hand over his crotch, fingers catching the red fabric covering Talon's wrist. "No, I -" Talon can read the flush on his face even in the dark, "I'm good, I just wanted to."

He frowns, trying to get a read on him and failing. "Are you okay?"

Jason leans his head into the touch. "I'm -" He starts, and Talon's sure the next word is meant to be 'fine' but Jason cuts himself off first, reassesses and answers honestly instead. "No." His lovers voice is rough, from cigarette's and sucking him off, from shouting earlier at Tim Drake. "I just needed to touch you."

"I'm not going to disappear, little bird." Talon traces his thumb over Jason's reddened lips. Saying it out loud helps both of them believe it.

The rush of air Jason expels through his mouth is telling enough, "I know. I - fuck, let's just keep going. Let's get the fuck out of here." He pulls away, puts his hands back onto the steering wheel and shifts the car into gear again to get back on the road.

"I can drive." Talon offers, he knows how, somewhere in the depths of himself, though he hasn't touched a vehicle in the years that he can remember.

Jason shakes his head, "Nah, s'okay. I need something to focus on. Besides," The twist of his lips is bitter, "It's not going to take us long to get there."

That's his fault, Talon knows, for picking somewhere so close to Gotham. He took advantage of Jason's agreement to let him choose the place, gave into his own reluctance to truly leave the city of his birth ( _His_ and not Dick Grayson's) behind. Distance, but not too much.

He tucks himself away, fastens his jeans back up and returns his gaze to the window, continuing to watch Gotham's lights retreat behind them.

Up ahead, the glow of Bludhaven draws closer.

 

*

 

The next night they walk the streets, through the part of the city that the locals call the Spine.

Jason insisted they stay on the ground, telling Talon that you couldn't learn a city from its rooftops, "You have to walk through it, you have to get down where the dirt and grime is to really know a place."

Bludhaven certainly has a lot of dirt and grime for them to get to know.

It sets him on edge at first to be so visible, yet the further they get into town the more Talon realises he's not visible at all. With him wearing one of Jason's oversized jacket's, the hood shadowing his eyes, no one even spares him a second glance. They ignore him the way they would any other stranger. He decides he likes that rather quickly.

"This place is a shit pile." Jason says to his right, and when Talon looks up at him he see's that Jason is smiling, speaking almost breathlessly, with a glint of excitement in his eyes. "Fucking hive of scum and villainy."

The city's population might be ignoring the unknown assassin in their midst, but Jason is still tall and bulky enough to be outwardly threatening without even trying. The savage grin on his face, combined with the swagger in his step, is enough that people start openly making an effort to swerve around them.

"Like Gotham?" Talon hazards, watching curiously to see where this is going, trying to ignore the way that just seeing that fire start to burn in Jason's eyes is enough to spur a similar excitement in himself. His little bird's moods were infectious, they always had been, and the two of them fed emotion between each other more often than not.

" _Worse_." And Jason laughs, throwing his head back. The hooker on the corner starts badly enough to drop her cigarette, and she curses before pressing further back into the doorway of an abandoned store front when they pass. "They don't even _try_ to hide it here."

Talon feels himself warming to the mood, his own smile curving his lips. "You like it."

"Damn right I do." Jason spins and catches him by the arms, pushes him back against the brick to crowd Talon in with his height as he leans in close enough to be heard even with a whisper. "We could take it." His breath rushes over Talon's lips, "You and me, we can make it _ours_."

He thinks this might be forgiveness. 

The truth is, he's always known that Jason needs a cause, a crusade, just as much as the Batman does. He could never be happy to sit in the shadows, just existing, and Talon doesn't want him to; he knows that misery too well. He waited years for Jason to come back and relight the fire in his own veins. 

"If you want it," Talon promises, "it's yours."

Jason kisses him then, hungry and wanton, their mouths mash together as they strain against each other. Jason's eyes burn with the fervour of his own righteous belief and Talon takes it, internalises it, and makes it his own. 

"I want it." His partner tells him, wrapping his arms around the small of Talon's back, pressing his head down against his neck. _I need it_ goes unsaid.

Talon combs his fingers through the short hairs on the back of Jason's head, studiously ignoring the lugheads who stare at them, the few who hiss homophobic slurs as they slip past, unknowing of the danger they court. They're background noise, inconsequential. "You can't be Red Hood." he warns Jason.

If that name rises here, or anywhere, it'll be enough to fetch Batman running.

"Tch, like I want that dead freaks cast off's anymore." Jason snorts, shrugging like the identity can run off him as easily as water from a duck's back. "I can find something new, easy." He pauses for a beat, then asks something Talon doesn't expect. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You don't have to be Talon, either, if you don't want to." Jason pulls back so they can look at each other eye-to-eye. "You can be whoever you want to be."

"To the people of this city?"

"To anyone."

Talon reaches up and brushes his thumb over Jason's lips curiously. "To you?"

"Yeah." Jason says at first, then elaborates. "I mean, you're _you_ to me, whatever name you use. But... you don't have to use the name they gave you, you know?"

They. The Court. The people who had made him more or less, at least in the beginning, before his strings were cut and he ran into the night to become something else. He's not the perfect Talon, not the ideally obedient assassin they wanted him to be, the way the others they had before him were. If he had been the Court might still be standing in some form.

Instead he hunted down those of them he could, the one's the Bat hadn't already found.

Talon frowns, feeling a ripple of displeasure. It's not the first time he's considered it, especially back during the days he spent learning about the man he used to be. "I know." He pushes his thumb into Jason's mouth, just to feel him lick across the pad of it before drawing back. "I'll think about it."

Jason looks unsure, almost shy, like he doesn't know if he crossed a line or not (and both of them have been so bad at that lately, as they continue to relearn each other), but then there's a woman's frightened cry and his head is snapping round, a hound who's caught a scent. It's a good enough reason to shelve this conversation for another time.

"Go, little bird." Talon tells him, with a burst of fond pride as Jason let's go of him to crack his knuckles in anticipation of laying justice upon some unsuspecting criminals. His partner starts to move, but then looks back, raising a single eyebrow in question.

"You're not coming?"

"I'll be above." He can see an easy route up from here to the building next to the place the scream came from. No one else on the street has batted an eyelid, or they've simply picked up their pace and pretended not to hear. Bludhaven's that type of town, the kind where everyone's already given up.

Talon watches Jason grin, right before another scream turns his expression grim and angry. He's gone a moment later, loping in the direction of the crime like a hunting wolf, and Talon moves immediately after. He's fast, but he'll still be lucky to get there before Jason starts breaking bones.

Breaking up an attempted assault may not end up being much in the long run, but it's a start.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost feel sorry for Blockbuster in this universe.
> 
> And this instalment more or less marks the end of the first arc of the Talon and the Hood! I have at least one more story plot planned, plus some transitional pieces to get us there, so there's plenty more to come yet :)
> 
> I real life news, I just started a full time job this week! Awesome news for me financially, though it unfortunately means less writing time, so updates may be a little slower to come in the future ^^;


End file.
